News in Brief – Ireland Falls To A New Kind Of Criminal

Enda’s been away on a mission before the taste of Turkey has barely left our lips. Good old Enda, what would we do without him? Well, actually while he’s been away the Limerick City of Culture Committee has crumbled further. CEO Patricia Ryan has now resigned from her 18 month, €120,000 salary job. NIB said didn’t we?! We said last week it was going to get silly and it has.

Not only has Ryan been resigned to giving up the job (and its accompanying cash) now there are allegations of phone hacking as someone let slip of her departure on a blog an hour before she made an official statement. It’s hardly whistleblowing on an Edward Snowden scale. Talking to RTE Radio 1 an artist involved described the whole thing as ‘like a big game’ before painstakingly going through each play; ‘the players have come out on the pitch . . . there’s been an upset . . . the whistle goes’ yeah we get the idea. It’s a game, Monopoly, the Limerick version.

Meanwhile back in the biggest city, a judge has fined a man for ‘walking around like Dirty Harry’. The plagiarist police are out again, next we won’t be able to have moves like Jagger or walk like Egyptians. Apparently the accused, Christopher Sweeney (33) with an address in Tallaght boarded the Luas with an imitation firearm tucked into the waistband of his trousers. Sweeney told the judge the toy was for his son which explains why he was stopped by Gardai carrying it on the Luas at midnight, perhaps he was going for the Santa thing and was going to climb down the chimney with it? The court also heard Sweeney has recently split from his partner, is unemployed and lives with his parents. Not so Dirty Harry now.

Not the only one in trouble, previously unheard of Ralph Lauren’s niece, Jennifer Lauren, has been in court. She was arrested off a plane travelling from Barcelona to New York after it was forced to stop in Shannon Airport given her drunk and disorderly behaviour. As she was arrested by Gardai she reportedly asked them to “say that in English please”. A great way to ingratiate yourself with a rural guard. Ms Lauren sat at a hearing before Killaloe District Court in the function room of the Brian Boru on the Hill bar in Ballina, Co Tipperary in front of a Judge Durcan. Guesses are she didn’t fancy a pint then.

And another one, (there’s a distinct crime theme this week) a Romanian man has been sentenced to 12 months in prison for committing a spate of robberies dressed in a women’s swimming costume. Emil Brasoveanu (27) with an address in Galway wore the one piece backwards as he swept through three premises in Clare on the rob. Apparently the speedo-type garment wasn’t a sartorial choice but when worn backwards allowed for maximum stuffing of stolen goods. Can’t knock him for effort.

Old people are to be sent to ghettoes as a result of new government cuts. Applicants for housing grants must now be at least 66 and they can only have €8,000 instead of the previous maximum of €10,000. Disability and house adaptation grants will also be cut, and those on low-income will be expected to stump up 5% of the cash themselves. The best bit about the whole story is that the Government forgot to mention it until yesterday when a Department of the Environment circular told local authorities they are to make the cuts immediately. Back in your box Grandad, you’re too expensive.